I’ve noticed an increase in the number of leaders I’ve been talking with recently, feeling overwhelmed by a sense of responsibility and taking themselves amost to burnout, some of them resigning altogether from their leadership positions s.

One lady, who I have been coaching, shared with me just the other day the fact that her team members are not pulling their weight. In her eyes, they are not helping to make decisions and not getting involved generally in operations in a way that they should be. So, being a very conscientious individual, she has been making up for the lack of weight by pulling more weight herself; basically, doing their jobs and making their decisions, in a bid to speed things up and get the work done.

I asked her to think back to when this happened first and how she handled it. She was very quickly able to get back to her first recollection and her immediate reaction, when initially she felt let down or disappointed, would be to take on the task herself until the team were not only allowing her to pull more weight, they were now critisising her when stuff didnt get done! Weird role reversal.

During the conversation, she realised she had created this situation for herself. By being the one who continued to show up and take responsibility, she was not only taking on more responsibility for herself, she was taking it away from the team.

They were, in turn, feeling quite disempowered and were also low on morale, as they were unable to be creative in the way they wanted to be in their roles.

The next week she got the team together and they discussed this responsibility theme and each member felt strongly about it. They had witnessed the leader taking on more and more and assumed that’s what she wanted or that she didn’t think they were capable. So they let her take more and more on and felt more and more removed from the team’s goals themselves.

An honest and open conversation ensued with the leader allowing responsibility to be shared back out amongst the team: as a result, new ideas and new initiatives were discussed.

Of course, as leader you take overall accountability for the success/achievement of the project: that’s why you are in a position of leadership but you have a team to help you deliver the goals and they are as keen for it to succeed as you are. But do remember to allow them to join in and to take ownership of their own parts in the overall goal.

During the current economic climate, with sales becoming harder to stabilise and costs becoming more challenging, companies are being forced to restructure and to slim down their salary bills. Individuals who are lucky enough to remain in the organisation are given more responsibility and accountability, to take on the demands of the colleagues roles they are replacing. There is then an expectation of an increase in the individuals productivity levels, to compensate for the reduction in the staffing quota.

Sometimes, following these restructures, organisations re allocate roles and responsibilities, fairly and taking into account workload’s, which, whilst on the surface may appear to be the best strategy, in practice, can often result in member’s of your team taking on areas that they are unfamiliar with, perhaps don’t enjoy so much, or dont have a natural talent in achieving results with. When people are asked to do tasks which they dont naturally have a talent for, they often find it harder to get the result and can also, in extreme cirumstances suffer from work related stress, which occurs when an individual is out of flow.

Of course, company restrutures are neccessary, so when planning for one with your team, here are a few things for you to consider, which will allow individuals to continue in their natural flow and to maintain a high level of productivity, immediately following the restructure.

Get to really know the natural talentsof the individuals in your team and do your best to ensure you not only select the best people to stay in the company but you also select the best people for the job’s that you are now structuring. Ask them which aspects of their job they enjoy the most and why. Find out what makes them tick and motivates them. Everyone is motivated in a different way, so dont be tempted to treat everyone as you would wish to be treated, instead find out how they would wish to be treated.

Allocate the additional tasksaccording to an individuals ‘natural talents’. Avoid giving your energetic, extroverted sales person, who is great with people and networking, additional spreadsheets to analyse or complete in the back of office, instead focus them on specific sales routes or targetted customer accounts where they can drive more sales with bigger accounts. Think about giving more operational, task focused activities to the person who really enjoys ‘completing a list’ and is able to juggle many operational activities at a time with great detail. Try not to give them the job of creating the new strategy or new sales plan, which takes them away from the detail and requires them to think in big picture thoughts, which is in complete contrast to their natural way of working and the way they often enjoy working the most.

When selecting the individuals to stay in the team Consider the balance of natural talents that you want in your team to ensure that all the tasks get effectively completed and on time. If you have a team that is very creative, bright, enthusiastic and full of fantastic ideas, you may find you are lacking in a grounded energy to actually bring the ideas to fruition. Balance here is key.

Following these 3 basic guidelines when restructuring will enable your ‘new’ team to hit the ground running and for productivity to not just get back to normal but to increase as well.